I haven’t done one of these in a loooong time. My reference was my reflection against a window with a screen behind it at night– the main light source was my monitor, and as I worked the colors shifted, changing the color of light on my face… This went into a loop until things refined themselves out. I really enjoy working with ambiguous live reference! I’d like to try a low-light life drawing workshop where the artists can barely see the models or their paper. Hmmmm!

Balancing a sketchbook on my head, keeping my arms shielded from the unpredictable A/C and being (happily!) wired on plenty of tea. Boot season hasn’t kicked in yet, but it will soon enough (as will my stripes)! I’m super-excited for all the classes I’m in– moreso for the teachers we’ve got (and will have next semester, too!) I’m finishing up some work outside of school and have been settling into the slow-but-steady growing load of homework. This is going to be a fantastic year. Crazy-busy, yes of course, but super-awesome and worth all the forthcoming sleepless nights! Eeee!

Daguerreotypes are so cool. If you get a chance to see one in real life, you can see how the silver is on a plate distinctly above the background– it’s like you got different values developed on different layers. So cool! Colors were painted on by hand.

I often thought self-portraits to be somewhat… narcissistic. Granted, they’re excellent to learn from and there’s nothing wrong with drawing yourself. But even so, they’re a simple, re-used concept… how could I make it something new? And then it occurred to me…